When Leon Russell recorded this massive 3 LP (or
2 CD) set in 1972, it seemed like he was riding a never-cresting wave of
popularity and hipness. He was way more than a triple threat: he was a singer,
songwriter, performer, arranger, producer and, as many saw in Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs And Englishmen, he was a guru
of sorts - “the master of space and time.” His field of vision took in
everything that rock was all about: raging R&B, swinging country and the
life-changing properties of gospel. That’s right, much of Leon’s shtick came
straight from the fire and brimstone preachers he experienced as a young
person. The results were explosive. For a short few years, Leon ruled concert
stages like few others. His bands were filled with serious rock and gospel
session players who helped craft the contemporary sound as it existed at the
time. But he brought something else to the stage as well. He was truly a
proselytizer for the powers of rock and roll.
The album can be broken into three categories of
performance; first a primer of great original songs by one of the best. Leon
classics “Shoot Out on the Plantation,” “Dixie Lullabye,” “Roll Away the
Stone,” “Prince of Peace,” “Stranger in a Strange Land,” “Out in the Woods” and
“Delta Lady” are all delivered with
screaming rock and roll authority. His ten-piece band (including four-piece
gospel combo Black Grass) burns down the barn from the first cut - an amazing
medley of the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There” / The Coasters’ “Idol With
The Golden Head” / the gospel classic “I Serve A Living Savior” / and Dylan’s “The Mighty Quinn” -
through to the final song, a revival tent workout of “It’s All Over Now Baby
Blue.” This mind-melting meld of
songs is the second category of performance found on the album. For reasons
understood only to him, Leon Russell was able to take disparate songs and
recast them through his own kaleidoscopic musical world view into new parts of
a different whole. Most notoriously he did this with The Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’
Jack Flash” and The Coasters’ “Young
Blood” at George Harrison’s The Concert
For Bangladesh in 1970. The duo of songs brought the house down and on Leon Live he repeats the feat with an even crazier 16-minute version that
drives the audience bananas. On this medley, Russell employs the third type of
performance while delivering the second. That third type is true gospel.
Antithetical as it may seem to the party-time spirit of rock and roll, gospel
is actually at the root of almost all American song, and Leon Russell embraced
that concept wholeheartedly on this album. He hands the stage over to Black
Grass a number of times and lets them bring the spirit while he undoubtedly
rested his pipes for the next showstopper. But when he does sing, his vocal
delivery is clearly influenced by the cadence and exclamatory emphasis of the
clergy and it is thrilling in a way that few rockers have ever attempted.
Rock music used to be more than a convenient
soundtrack to corporate marketing efforts! It used to be a tent on the
outskirts of town, where kids could meet and observe ancient and
spirit-altering rituals taking place in front of their eyes, but out of sight
of their parents. I used to leave concerts with a fire in my belly to change
the world; now the fire is dealt with by antacids.
-
Paul
Epstein
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